Information skills develpment

Information Skills Development

Introduction

Information Skills Development is another word for Information Literacy. This one is more commonly used. There are many definitions for this topic. One of them is that “in terms of a set of competencies that an informed citizen of an information society ought to possess to participate intelligently and actively in that society”. [i]There are many organizations that are dedicated to this topic. Like the American Library Association’s (ALA). This concept was built upon decades of long efforts of librarians to help other people learn about how to use different research tools in the libraries.

In 1974, the term “Information Skills” was first introduced by Zurkowski to refer to people who are able to solve their informationproblems by using relevant information sources and the technology available.

There are many benefits for having Information skills because you could access more rapidly to the information you need, you can evaluate it and see what you need and what you don´t and finally you can use it. It saves you time and you get exactly the information you need.

There are three steps to obtaininggood information, they are:

• Access

• Evaluation

• Use

Questionnaire for Information Skills Development

1. Why is it so important that a student be information literate?

So they are prepared for the opportunities the may have in the future, whether at work or in higher education.

2. In what levels of education is Informationliteracy applicable?

Information literacy is applicable from kindergarten through university, basically in all levels of education.

3. Is information literacy relevant in everyday life?

I think it is, every day we search for information, either for school, for our jobs or even to do some fixing around in our house.

4. What would be the impact for Mexico if all studentswere information literate?

The impact would be huge, Mexico would advance in all areas and it would give a chance to everyone to have a brighter future.

5. Do teachers need to be information literate? Why?

Of course, because if the teachers are not information literate, then how are the students suppose to be information literate, they are the guides for all thestudents.

6. What institutions in Mexico have programs of information literacy (information skills development)?

• The state of Puebla[ii]

• INEA[iii]

• Sep

• UNESCO[iv]

• UNAM[v]

7. Are people in the United States, Canada, France, England, Australia, and Spain interested in developing theirinformation skills?

Of course, because if all the citizens of these countries are information literate, they have a chance to succeed and to be a better country, economically and socially.

I.1 Access to information

Accessing to information is the primary step towards being information literate. There are two types of access to information:

• Physical access

•Intellectual access

With all the technology we possess this days, physical access to information is easier. Intellectual access can be denied to the student who doesn’t possess cognitive strategies to select, retrieve, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, create and communicate. Web browsers are widely used and get thousands of hits a day on a variety of subjects. CD-ROM databases hold vastamounts of information. Everything from scholarly works to personal interest web pages is available on the Internet.

Some people may say that we have a global internet library. The internet library doesn’t have the benefit of reviewing, selecting or the attention that a librarian may have. Also an editor hasn’t scrutinized the works contained in this library before they were published. Almost...